of human love
by grangerbutstranger
Summary: As it turns out, liking Lydia Martin is a whole lot nicer than loving her. Stiles-Lydia friendship.


**A/N:** So this was mostly written immediately post-finale in response to my gut reaction to the Lydia/Stiles scenes, which was "oh please please don't," because while I love, love, love the idea of their potential friendship, I can't see Lydia being into him and still in-character, and I want Stiles to move on, because Lydia does not need to be on a pedestal in those heels.

This fic is a short and not-very-thorough exercise in letting Stiles get over her by actually being her friend. I might try the same thing in a longer fic, but this felt separate from my other ideas, mostly because I didn't want to "replace" Lydia with another love interest for Stiles, tempting as it was.

I'm kind of afraid I made Scott sound like a douche. I didn't mean to! But it happened. I wanted him to sound like a realistic teenage boy, and I was also lazy enough to use him as a device to make Stiles consciously acknowledge that "friendzoning" etc. is a stupid concept.

* * *

"Do you want to come over after school?" Lydia seems to ask, but Stiles must have misheard.

"Do I want to what?" he clarifies, because Lydia's immunity to the bite? Yeah, he's pretty sure that has nothing to do with whether or not she's going to rip his throat out.

"Do you want to come over after school?" she repeats, enunciating so that her lips bend around every word, and he thinks about how it would feel to kiss her.

Thinks about it hard enough that he forgets to answer.

"Stiles!" she snaps her fingers in front of his face, and he jerks away, having unconsciously tilted just the tiniest bit forward. "Do you want to or not? I can ask Allison."

"What about Jackson?" He's not asking because he thinks it, like, a date or anything. He just wants to know why she's not planning to spend the afternoon sucking werewolf...face. Yeah, he's going with face. Face. Please.

Dammit, now he's thinking about Jackson's dick, which…he is just not going there.

Lydia is merciful. Lydia brings him back. "He's hanging out with Danny. They have a bro date. Which is pretty much like a regular date, only I'm pretty sure they're not sleeping together."

"Pretty sure?" Stiles squeaks, and seriously, can't he have a normal reaction to anything? Does he always have to pick the wrong part of a sentence to dwell on?

"Do I look like I speak teenage boy? No, I don't, because I'm a girl. Are you coming over or not, Stilinski?"

"Yeah!" He grins down at her, though it's only a couple of inches in her heels. He faintly wonders how she gets around school in those. Actually, he wonders how she survives in Beacon Hills in them. "Yeah, sure, that-that sounds great, actually. Meet you outside after school?"

So that's how he ends up on Lydia's couch, watching a rerun of _Gilmore Girls_, which is surprisingly awesome, and even if he doesn't tell Scott that part, he can brag about how he sat two feet away from Lydia Martin for two hours, eating Fritos and gummy bears and explaining the intricacies of werewolf lore and how to hang with them as a human during commercial breaks.

"So is Jackson part of the pack now?" Lydia asks, and Stiles shrugs and makes a face.

"Probably. Derek did bite him. But Derek also tried to kill him, so who knows? Maybe he'll run off and join Scott's pack." He snorts at his own joke, but Lydia doesn't seem as amused.

"Why isn't Scott part of the pack?" she asks, and the look in her eyes is sharp, like she knows more than she's letting on. Stiles doesn't know whether to trust that look. Or her words. Or her.

"Didn't want to be, I guess. He's not Derek's biggest fan."

"And you?"

"Me what?"

Lydia squints at him, hair falling forward as she leans in to study his face. "Are you in Scott's pack? Or Derek's?"

"Uh, human, remember?" He waves his hand a little. "I guess you could kinda say I'm the pack liaison. Scott's my best friend, but Derek and I have saved each other's lives a few times, so I pretty much don't think he's the worst. He tried to make me cut off his arm once, did you know that?"

"No." She's back to watching the TV, so he shuts up, stuffs his face, and watches Lorelai try to buy an inn.

Three weeks later, he's sort of cleaning his room and mostly picking things up and putting them down in slightly different locations when Scott alerts him to the fact that it's become a pattern.

"Stiles, Lydia's not your girlfriend—" Scott begins, and Stiles cuts him off, because, like, really? He really had to go there?

"Dude, I know. I get it. I'm not dating her—"

"But you're kind of hers," he finishes.

Stiles hisses. "Harsh, Scott. Harsh."

"Dude, you hang out and watch _Gilmore Girls_ three afternoons a week," he says. "You're her girlfriend. In, like, the friend way. Like Allison's her girlfriend. Not, like. You know."

"I'm aware that I am not in a lesbian relationship with Lydia, yes," Stiles says, "and this conversation has taken a definite turn for the even weirder than usual."

"I'm just saying. You're glued in the friend zone."

Stiles lifts a hoodie from the floor and smells it. Acceptable. Doesn't make him gag, at least. "Dude. Not a bad place to be."

"But you love her." Scott looks and sounds so puzzled that Stiles wants to...pet him or something.

"You love Allison." Which is kind of a low blow, he realizes after he's said it, but the point still stands. Scott and Allison broke up and they're still friendly. Why shouldn't he be friends with Lydia when they haven't even dated?

Scott sighs. "If you say so, dude. Are you, like, over her?"

"No, no," he answers. Maybe? "I still love her with the passion of a thousand suns and all that shit."

But maybe he doesn't, he realizes, because sitting on her bed, listening to her fill him in on _Robinson Crusoe_, which she says is a total guy book and which he can't bring himself to finish before his paper's due next week, he watches her eyelashes brush together when she blinks and leave a tiny smear of mascara on her cheek when she closes her eyes tight in laughter. He notices the way her dress wrinkles around her breasts and how her toes wiggle against her quilt, and he loves her.

But he doesn't want to date her, because Lydia, he's learning, from the way she texts Jackson every hour and the times when she calls him to demand he bring her low-fat ice cream even though Stiles is right there and has a car, is one high-maintenance girlfriend.

More than that, though, he just...likes her. It sounds stupid out loud, but he never really liked her when he loved her. And Lydia's kind of great. She's likable. Like-worthy. She should be liked, is what he's saying.

He realizes with a certain finality that they're hopeless anyway when he brings her to his house for the second time and his dad doesn't even blink when they close the door to his room. Not a word of warning, because even the Sheriff can see there's nothing between them.

He wonders, sometimes, if there could have been, if it hadn't been for Jackson. If it hadn't been for Peter. If it hadn't been for any of the gazillion things that got in their way.

But it's not true, is it? That there's nothing between them. Stiles is smart enough to follow Lydia's logic, and Lydia keeps him focused, keeps him grounded. They laugh at stupid shit together in a different way than him and Scott. When the Alpha pack makes trouble, they're the strategists, the ideas, the knowledge, and Peter Hale asks sheepishly if he can get in on their research.

They keep each other human. Remind each other how to be.

And when Stiles, someday, has feelings for another girl, Lydia's on his side. Lydia's the best wingman a guy could ask for, actually. She stomps right over to her and tells her what's up, and the girl looks at Stiles like she's really considering talking to him.

She doesn't, of course, but Lydia's there to point out how her skirt doesn't match her shoes and her makeup doesn't do her any favors. It doesn't change his mind, exactly, but it helps, because Lydia caring helps.

"I changed my mind," says Scott, "You're her gay best friend."

"Fuck you," says Stiles. "Can't I just be her friend? Does it have to be a thing?"

"Jackson has one too," he continues. "It's only fitting. Plus, you've gone _shopping_ with her."

"I'm not gay. Also, I think that's homophobic."

"A technicality." Scott waves it away with his lacrosse stick, nearly hitting a passerby in the process. "I just mean you're the best friend who's a guy who's never gonna date her. Like a gay guy."

"I went shopping with her because last time I tried to buy her a present I bought a TV," Stiles says, staying far away from the rest. "And _you're_ my best friend."

"Yeah, of course." Scott agrees with a shrug and a smile that looks weirdly thoughtful. "But you're hers."

He is, he thinks, and maybe it's not what he wanted or planned, but it's great. They're great. He likes to say he always knew they would be.

Lydia likes to say she's still just taking pity on him, but Stiles is pretty sure that's a joke, and always says so.

She hits him with a spatula and kisses his cheek five minutes later. He doesn't feel his stomach swoop or butterflies in his throat, and he's grateful, because that was always kind of uncomfortable anyway. Now he just feels warm. Happy.

He doesn't envy Jackson, and if he still thinks Lydia's stunning, well. She wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
